The digital transformation is having a profound impact on the international trade of the United Kingdom (UK). Digital trade exports have grown three times faster than other exports and now represent more than half of total exports, twice the OECD and EU averages. This strong performance is, in...

The digital transformation has had a profound impact on international trade, lowering barriers to internationalisation and contributing to growing trade competitiveness, but at the same time making international trade transactions more complex. Distinctions between goods and services and between...

The ubiquitous exchange of data across borders has given rise to a range of concerns by governments and citizens about some of the effects of so much information being collected and used, often without the knowledge of data subjects. This has led countries to condition or prohibit the transfer...

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in generating economic activity and employment in developing and developed countries. However, partly due to remaining at-the-border trade costs, SMEs continue to be less represented in international trade – as direct exporters...

This paper provides a broad overview of some of the issues that digital trade raises for ASEAN countries and its MSMEs, including new opportunities that digitalisation presents for ASEAN firms to increase trade. However, it shows that adoption of relatively simple digital tools, such as...

Although global value chain (GVCs) participation in Southeast Asia has been growing, little is known about whether the benefits from participation are accruing to larger firms or if small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), which make up the majority of companies and employ the bulk of the...

The debate about whether or not to extend the WTO Moratorium on imposing customs duties on electronic transmissions has, to date, narrowly focused on its potential customs revenue implications. This paper sets out to broaden and deepen this debate. First, by putting current estimates of the...

This paper provides an overview of the evolving nature of digital trade and digital trade policies. It shows that digital trade has been growing faster than “non-digital” trade. By 2018, 24% of global trade (USD 5.1 trillion) could be considered digital trade. In parallel, countries have...